<p>Coming into college, I'd heard that professors curve grades in classes depending on how students in that class do. However, at my school I've never heard of curving. For example, once in my math class, the average in my class was a 59% and the professor did not curve the grades.</p>
<p>I'm fine with not curving grades since I deserve a failing grade if I can only get 50% of the questions right on a math test. I'm just wondering how other schools do it.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of a class that isn’t curved in some way.</p>
<p>Like half of mine did this year, and half didn’t. I’m just glad I wasn’t graded on a curve-- if I do 90% work and only end up with a B, just because the other kids in my class got 1 more question right than me on a test, that’s totally not okay.</p>
<p>Some of my professors do – usually in the psychology courses. While most kids tend to like the whole idea of curving, I hate it. Curving can effect you. Some teachers I had stated that they don’t curve because, believe it or not, you might get a lower score. I don’t know how that works (maybe someone with a better knowledge in statistics can help me out here).</p>
<p>I like when teachers give you opportunities for extra credit points. That is better than curving.</p>
<p>Nearly all of my engineering classes have been curved, some massively. I had one class where the raw class average was around a 40, and nobody ended up failing.</p>
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<p>Imagine if everyone in your class were to get a final grade between a 90 and a 100. Then the teacher curved the average grade to an 80% and applied the normal “uncurved” grading scheme. The people who had a 90 prior to curving will wind up with a grade below an 80, thus lowering their score.</p>
<p>I generally like classes that don’t stick to the usual >90 A, 80-90 B, etc scheme. Ten percentage points just isn’t enough to differentiate students when often tests will only have three or four problems on them. I liked the professors that didn’t curve, but instead had an established scheme along the lines of 80-100 A, 60-80 B, 40-60 C, etc. It might seem really generous, but I can assure you plenty of people got 40s and below on exams (while it gave plenty of room to differentiate up at the top). </p>
<p>When a class is curved at the end it makes it so you never really know how you’re standing. It also then grades you based upon your performance relative to your current classmates and not as to how much of the material you’ve learned. I took a number of classes with less than ten students, and definitely had times where my class was considerably better at the material than previous years. So, even though we had beaten up the historical average for the class, we still got the same grade distribution.</p>
<p>^ thanks for the information about the curve. </p>
<p>My psychology teacher states how he plans on curving the points at the end of the semester. Honestly, I’m scared about this. I really don’t know how I’m doing in the class. I assumed I was at a C+ average, but he told us how it wasn’t actually our grades. The point system is basically like what you stated with 40-60 = C.</p>
<p>^ thanks for the information about the curve. </p>
<p>My psychology teacher states how he plans on curving the points at the end of the semester. Honestly, I’m scared about this. I really don’t know how I’m doing in the class. I assumed I was at a C+ average, but he told us how it wasn’t actually our grades. So hopefully I can conjure up a B or B+ if I ace the final next week.</p>
<p>I’m a math major. I don’t take classes which aren’t curved. </p>
<p>Also, thinking about absolutes in terms of percentage you get right on a math test is a bad way to think about what you’re doing. If you can only get 50% right on a test, but the test is way, way beyond your level, this is a good thing, not a bad one.</p>
<p>alright that’s interesting. I’ve taken 11 classes at Clemson and none of them have been curved. (even large physics, chemistry, engineering and math classes)</p>
<p>Having a curve allows the professor to make tests and the class super hard, and demand a higher level of work. This is good.</p>
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<p>So you have to get 90% (or 93%?) to get an A? It seems like the content would really have to be watered down for a decent chunk of the class to reach that.</p>
<p>One of my classes actually had a weird way of doing the curve. Basically, the professor took the square root of our original grade and multiplied it by 10 to get our new grade. </p>
<p>For example, if you got an 81 originally, your new grade is a 90 (sq root of 81 is 9, 9x10 is 90). If you got a 64 originally, then your new grade is an 80 (sq root of 64 is 8, 8x10 is 80). And so forth.</p>
<p>Best thing about that was that nobody got scr*wed over. Our grade could only get better.</p>
<p>I don’t think the content is watered down at all. I’ve compared what I’ve learnt with other general engineering students and the content/textbook is exactly the same, we all use the same homework system (masteringphysics, masteringchemistry, mymathlab, webassign) and the tests have been very challenging. So yeah I need to get a 89.5% to get an A. (If you get an 89.4% it’s a B which I got in my first calculus class and wasn’t very happy about)</p>
<p>One of my government teachers gives everyone points on the tests and papers until the class average on that assignment is an 81%.</p>
<p>Just curious - how does [this</a> test](<a href=“http://www.scribd.com/doc/27680350/Second-Midterm-February-24-2010"]this”>http://www.scribd.com/doc/27680350/Second-Midterm-February-24-2010) compare to what you’ve had?</p>
<p>I just want to throw out there that anyone who has tests that are humanly possible to get a legit A on, appreciate it! I’m just finishing first year at Georgia Tech (computer engineering), and I walked out of my calc final hoping for a 70. Most of the tests I’ve taken in the past year, the average ranges from a 70 to a 25 (true fact). Tech Profs def. are in the school of thought that “lets see what they know, and curve later”… but it’s awful when you don’t know if you’ll have an A or a C on the grade report until said grade report comes out!</p>
<p>Only my anatomy professors curve. In my other classes: forget it.</p>